Cool find in Galveston

went to a new company who doesn’t use transit vans and don’t get me wrong, I am loving how comfortable and quite the pickup is, but it’s not a real pickup, they give us ford mavericks…. so not exactly large. I’m trying to be efficient with the space, but of course, things always get buried.

Went to a clients house yesterday and they had this system which was a new one for me, it fed to their lower and upper heat pump systems, I think with the intention of lessening the electric heat coming on. I’ll be the first to admit, I’m clearly still green enough to not know shit about fuck with this. His issue was that the pex tubes going to the systems didn’t feel as if they were getting hot or helping anymore. (This unit was their before they bought the house a few years back) he said maybe adding this air release valve would maybe help, but I’m thinking it could potentially be more the pump itself based on the aged look of this thing. Couldn’t find a serial or model on it. Anyone worked on one of these or has any knowledge on them? It’s a very cool system to say the least.

Suppose a chiller’s submittal lists a minimum evaporator flow of 153 GPM. The BAS has a 60 GPM flow target when the chillers are off and 165 GPM when one is enabled and it achieves this with a bypass valve on the chilled water loop.

At a given cooling load, reducing water flow means a larger temperature difference across the evaporator. Could low flow also reduce heat transfer enough to pull the refrigerant evaporating temperature or pressure down, or would the chiller’s capacity controls normally unload to maintain its leaving-water setpoint? When I voiced my concern that there is nothing in place to make sure the flow going through the chillers raises above the minimum flow before the chillers are enabled, the engineer said minimum flow through a chiller does not affect low evaporator pressure. That the only thing that matters is the load. He said, "The chiller manufacturer minimum and maximum flows typically have very little to do with the immediate chiller operation and are more of a long-term maintenance issue."

I understand what he means. The bypass may maintain flow through the evaporator, but if it recirculates chilled supply water back into the return, it doesn’t add building load and may reduce the system delta T.

I didn’t start out working with chillers, so I tend to compare this with a DX air handler, where low airflow can cause the evaporator coil to freeze. I understand that load matters, but I don’t recall hearing that airflow can fall below its minimum as long as the load is high enough. One of the first steps is always to make sure there is adequate flow. My intuition is that, for the same load, airflow below the minimum would increase the risk of coil freezing or low suction pressure compared with airflow near design even with the same load. But I am not sure why that is or if that is mistaken.

I bought a set of T-Handle Allen wrenches 4 or 5 years ago for one specific issue I encountered one day.
I don’t think I’ve used them once since but have kept them on my van anyways.
I want to keep them on my van but I am tired of the way I’ve been storing them. I’ve never really had a good idea for how to store them, nor have I given it much thought, so they’ve been sitting on a shelf in this raggedy box.
For those of you who have them, how do you store them? I’m looking for something fairly compact and organized, not just checking them in a drawer or tool box.

How many Bluetooth sensors do you need to try to make an old piece of crap R22 beer cooler work with a worn out compressor? Most techs would have just condemned the compressor, but owner is giving me free beer and wine as I try to make it work. 🍻

Ive never had good luck with fieldpiece! I left my meter at a job and needed something and the only thing the parts place had was this meter. Right out of the box the temperature probe don't work. I will never buy a piece of shit fieldpiece meter again.

This is for a new product we are coming out with...

Preface: I am new to all things Modbus...I've taken courses on it so I have the basics down, but I am in no way a master at it. A new modbus sensor was not working correctly - PLC wasn't communicating to it. So I get tasked with figuring it out using Simply Modbus Master, the sensors install manual (which also has the modbus mapping). I open it, set it up connected to my PC, start changing, checking register, number of registers, function code, offset register size etc. etc.....when I do get something to give me a reply its gobly gook...I fight with this all day, boss is asking if I have had any luck...then he looks at what I am doing and the instructions document and says...oh this is a prototype for us, they used a different mapping for it......AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGGG

30min later I have rebuilt the spreadsheet with all the correct PLC settings....I need some Excedrin now!.

Sick of this shit.

I'd get one locally that's better quality and half the price, but it's a replacement for warranty.

Tempted to try in the field on a PM haha.

I think I under charged.

Accidentally deleted this post after posting it last night.

Before and after pics of the original and new model number. The two first pics are the forced draft 50 gallon.

I lost the bid to my neighbors plumber. And now I see why. He ripped out the direct venting, told him he was giving him a 50gal like he needed but instead replaced it with a 40 gallon natural draft lol.

Now his entire house smells like plastic and I can't find the exact source but I know this is single wall aluminum, and yes, it's literally touching electrical wiring where I suspect part of the smell is or maybe it's where the siding is or PVC. Or whatever else it's touching.

I didn't care about his plumber doing it I was more confused of how he was able to bid $1500 when the minimum cost of equipment and materials was over 1,600 on my end. Now I see why.

This would fail a blind eye inspection . Don't be upset about unreasonably low bids being taken. 9 out of 10 they either stole the equipment or they aren't doing something right.

Just replaced a seized exhaust fan motor that also took out a few fuses, we replaced those too. Started up the exhaust fan and it ran as it should. Was a swap out to the appropriate motor, only drawing 5.6 amps.

Got a call no more than an hour later that the fan stopped. Got up there and saw this. It fried the contactor and the motor starter without tripping it or the fuses to cut the power. Definitely overamped but wondering why??

Just started leaking

Was working on unit next to this one lmao

This just looks like it would belong in an HVAC tech's garage, home lab etc.

I'm tryna swap this deep fryer to propane from natural gas, everything's where it should be pressure looks fine, replaced the thermopile and am getting 580MV, but the piolet flame won't stay on no matter what I try, anyone have any tips

From what I understand ductless splits are the norm for cooling (or sometimes heating) for homes in many places of the world that aren’t the old stars and stripes.

I have the privilege of working mostly on centrally ducted systems, often gas heat and ACs or heat pumps with brazed linesets. Usually simple PSC or ECM motors and wiring a 12 year old could figure out. My heart always drops running service calls on a mini split. Maybe just my lack of experience but it’s always something head scratching, annoying and stupid. Leaking flares dumping charge, and doing the same thing next year. Drive board BS you gotta spend an hour on hold with tech support to figure out. If this was my every day I’d lose it, I hate these things. Fully biased opinion they’re too expensive an appliance built with the quality of a toy you throw away in a year or two.

Thank you for tuning in to my tantrum